Scientists Develop A Way To Use A Smartphone To Prevent Food Poisoning : The SaltA microscope that clips on to your phone's camera can detect bacteria, such as salmonella or E. coli, even in tiny amounts. But the technology can't yet distinguish between good and bad bacteria.

Scientists Develop A Way To Use A Smartphone To Prevent Food Poisoning

UMass food scientists Lynne McLandsborough, left, and Lili He are researching ways to use your smartphone to detect bacteria in food.
Karen Brown/New England Public Radio
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Karen Brown/New England Public Radio

UMass food scientists Lynne McLandsborough, left, and Lili He are researching ways to use your smartphone to detect bacteria in food.

Karen Brown/New England Public Radio

Food scientists at the University of Massachussetts Amherst have come up with a technique they say could make it a lot easier to avoid food poisoning.

The main piece of equipment? Your smartphone.

Currently, to identify the bacteria that can get you sick, like E. coli or salmonella, food scientists often use DNA testing.

They obtain samples from, say, raw spinach or chicken skin, by rinsing the food and collecting a tiny bit of bacteria from the water. Then they let that bacteria multiply over 24 hours to get a big enough sample.

"Bacteria can be in the very, very low numbers, and cause illness," said UMass microbiologist Lynne McLandsborough. "So that detection needs to detect low numbers."

McLandsborough is working with UMass food science professor Lili He on what they say is a much simpler — and more accessible — tool to detect harmful bacteria in food: a smartphone app that uses a $30 microscope attachment.

The device works in conjunction with a chemically-coated chip that binds to bacteria, even in tiny amounts.

Dipping the chip into contaminated water for half an hour will reveal bacteria, as Adam Salhaney, an undergraduate in He's lab, demonstrated.

"You can take this ... microscope attachment for any smart phone," Salhaney said, gripping the iPhone 7 they use as a prototype, "and you can clip it right onto the camera."

After pointing the microscope at a gold chip they'd coated with salmonella, Salhaney enlarged an image with a number of black dots set against the gold background of the chip. The dots were bacteria.

Since his hand was shaking a bit, Salhaney had to work to get the image into focus. "But I think the average consumer will be able to figure it out without much trouble," he said.

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